MANILA — Intensified police presence is creating a relatively peaceful election period so far for the Calabarzon area, the Philippine National Police Police Regional Office 4 (PNP PRO-4) said Tuesday.
In a report to Camp Crame, the PNP Regional Election Monitoring Action Center (Remac) said consolidated data from April 15 to May 7 recorded no election-related incidents so far.
There are 57 barangays in 21 towns and cities on the PNP PRO-4’s hotspots list otherwise known as Election Watchlist Areas (Ewas). Some eight of these towns are in Quezon, six in Batangas, five in Cavite, and one each in Laguna and Rizal.
A total of 156 individuals have been arrested and 133 firearms have been recovered along with two grenades, 1,182 pieces of assorted ammunition, 23 bladed weapons and three firearms replicas.
Among those arrested were two PNP members, one barangay chairman and one security guard while the rest were civilians.
On Monday, PRO 4 reported an inventory of a total of 765 assorted firearms including those voluntary surrendered to the police since the implementation of Commission on Elections Resolution No. 10197 or the ban on bearing, carrying or transporting of firearms or other deadly weapons.
A total of 638 assorted firearms and 692 ammunition of these were turned-over for safe keeping by candidates, barangay officials, businessmen and other civilians.
The election gun ban for this year’s village polls started on April 14 and will end on May 21. (Benjamin Pulta/PNA)
